


Formation

by Saul



Series: Assemblage [1]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Child Abuse, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-23 04:00:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4862297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saul/pseuds/Saul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It isn't as easy to hide with your heart clinging to your sleeve. A handful of beginnings for a handful of Domino City's finest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Joey Wheeler

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Joey Wheeler hates his daemon from the day she settled.”

Walls a gentle beige and potted plastic plants at every window set a soft contrast to the busy sound of nurses moving to-and-fro, of patients shuffling in-and-out, of doctors hmming and hawing. The small hospital was a building trying its best at being comfortable without true comfort. It didn’t fit Serenity at all. Joey hated it.

At least the vending machines had decent ice cream. Serenity had always been partial to the fudge-filled ones.

Nails clicked on the tile behind him, but he hardly spared his shadow a glance – this visitation would be the second in as many months, the nurses looking sympathetic and the doctor’s mouth pinching at the corners as she warned their mother of what to expect in the coming months. Their mother hadn’t wanted Joey in the room for the diagnosis, but what did he care? Like _she_ had any right to boss _him_ around. She was supposed to be the one taking care of Serenity, not letting her get sick.

Turning the doorknob and bumping the door open with his hip, he mustered up a big, wide grin as he flourished the ice cream bars. His smile softened at Serenity’s delighted gasp, and he relinquished the bar to the bright-eyed lemur (-- the Madagascar documentary had left a mark, huh! -) that bounded over with no small bit of pride. He clambered back with barely a word of thanks – more excitement than rudeness, Joey figured - into the bed with an excited babble meant for Serenity’s ears only; Joey, meanwhile, took to the chair right next to her head. With more of an awareness than he wanted to give, he noticed the doctor and their mother were nowhere to be found.

“Ooh, fudge? Thanks, Joey!”

“Don’t mention it. See, they try to hide all the good stuff, but I found them out! You’ve just got to go two hallways down.”

Serenity’s smile rivaled the sun’s. Her eyes crinkled at the corners – one a quarter foggy, a white blotch sitting like an ugly sore, from _it’s not bad, brother, I just need glasses_ to _can you sit on my left? My right side isn’t so good…_

Stupid, fake hospital. What good was it if they couldn’t even take care of a little girl like her?

“… Joey? Is dad here?”  
  
He froze.

“What?” He gave her a funny look. That bastard wouldn’t be caught dead within five miles of their mother. “No.”  
  
“Oh… I just thought… Well, isn’t that Maizey?”

For the first time since hearing his sister had maybe six months’ worth of sight left (a number with too many zeroes required to stall it longer, and who knew if it might progress further?), he glanced down to his side. Chocolate eyes set in a white, boxy face gazed back at him.

He didn’t know what to say. Neither did she.

Had she said anything since they arrived?

He hadn’t noticed. Hadn’t thought to notice. Serenity had been the priority…

An awkward silence stretched out – it wasn’t broken until the nurse returned. Even then, he didn’t say anything to Danielle, and she didn’t say anything to him.

\---

Not until they were away from the hospital. They stopped in an alleyway a block from their apartment, the sun casting long shadows over cracked pavement and crumpled cardboard boxes.

“Can’t you change?”

Voice a whip: scandalized, hurt, wanting to hurt.

“I can’t.”

Defensive, upset. Affronted.

She had no right to be affronted. She’d chosen this!  


“The hell is wrong with you?” This was what she was – this couldn’t be what she was! Hands clenched into fists, shoulders a tight band. “The hell is wrong with _us?_ Shift! Come on! I want a—a bear! Be a great, big bear! Or a wolf! I always liked it when you were a wolf!”

“—But it doesn’t work like –“

“’But?’ Shut up! Don’t give me excuses. Be a lion! Be a—remember when you were an otter for a month? Be an otter again. God, Dani, why are you—one of those mutts? Shit, you know, _I don’t care,_ be some slimy slug, just— _change!_ ”

“I want to, but this is… -- No! What am I saying? You’re being dumb, Joey! Listen - I can’t! Okay? I can’t! Something’s wrong with the both of us, because I can’t change anymore!”

They said in school there was no choosing your own daemon. Dozens smarter than him had tried to no success. Daemons didn’t listen to reason and logic like that—they were what they were, and they weren’t what they weren’t. Some scientists might’ve said it was more complicated, but it never had been for Joey. The simplicity had always been comforting.

Not like this, though. Not as a mirror image to his bastard father’s daemon.

For the first time since their dad struck out at Serenity and neither of them had done anything to stop it, he hated her.

\---

Her name was Danielle, and she was a pitbull through-and-through. Pink nails, pink nose, floppy ears, short white fur and eyes that followed everything, a _mean_ set to low shoulders, chest round as a barrel--- she matched Maizey, his dad’s, in all but height. In that way, she was shorter.

But not lighter. Compared to his father’s, Danielle packed in the muscle. She quickly learned how to put it to use after school when – inevitably – some moron thought he could pick a fight.

The differences between Danielle and his dad’s weren’t worth noticing, though. Nothing stood up to the look of approval that came over his father’s face once he figured out Joey’s daemon had settled.

\---

 He hated her. He _hated_ her.

\---

Tristan tried to comfort him. His own daemon had settled months prior – Joey had been one of the last at sixteen – into a respectable black Labrador, her fur a glossy black and tongue perpetually lolled out in a sloppy grin. Shelby wasn’t anything special, Tristan said, but she was _his –_ and that pride, that affection, it rankled Joey _so bad_. Why couldn’t his have settled into something better? Dani was _his_ daemon – why couldn’t she have been something worth being proud about?

He’d thought Tristan and he—well, he thought they were tight. That Tristan understood. That nothing would break them apart. And this wouldn’t, it _wouldn’t,_ it was just a stupid daemon.

It was just Danielle, who had changed into an anteater and lumbered in silly circles to make a younger Serenity squeal with delight. Just Dani, the one who gave him the best advice that he didn’t always take, who knew when to shut up and give him space and when to pull at his hair to get him to pay attention and what to say to get teachers off his back. It was just his own soul.

Danielle bit Shelby in seriousness for the first time that week, after the black lab tried one too many times to get her to play. Tristan looked upset, Shelby whining in more than physical pain. It squeezed something in his chest to look at the two of them.

He stormed off without apology, Danielle racing ahead of him.

He bumped into Yugi Mutou on his way off school grounds. The kid’s books went flying, a stupid-looking box spilling twinkling, golden pieces across the pavement.

Mouth twisting into a sneer, words sharper than usual (great, just _great,_ why couldn’t he catch a break?). “Watch where you’re walking, midget.”

Yugi’s daemon clung as a bat to his sleeve, but – “It’s okay, Yugi, I’ll help,” - shifted swiftly into a tiny orange monkey to help him pick up the pieces. Joey’s eyes narrowed at the sight. So the scrawny brat’s hadn’t settled, huh? Lucky kid. Dumb, lucky kid.

“Sorry, Joey! I, uh, just—”

“ _Apologize,_ twerp.” Dani stepped with muddy paws on one of the books, heavy head swung low to growl straight into the monkey’s face. It floundered backwards into a fearfully hissing cat, even though Yugi only froze, uncertain, with hands raised. What did he have to be confused over? It was like he expected a different turn of events every time they met. When was the kid going to _get it?_ There was nothing to be surprised about. This was how things were.

But before he could wrap his hand in the brat’s coat and drag him up to knock sense into him, Joey’s eyes caught again on the peel-back of Danielle’s lips, the yellowed teeth a familiar cut in a familiar head, and –

“Whatever.”

Hands stuck deep into his pockets, Joey turned and stamped out of the school grounds.

It took a few seconds, but eventually, Danielle followed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Joey - Danielle, a pitbull. Tristan - Shelby, a black labrador. Serenity and Yugi's daemons are currently unsettled.
> 
> Daemons within this universe are an external manifestation of a person's soul. When younger, a daemon is unsettled and can take the shape of whatever fanciful creature can be thought up. Once a daemon "settles," however, it is popularly assumed that person has "found who they are," and subsequently grown up.
> 
> All of these chapters are me playing around with how the characters' daemons might settle and, after, act! There isn't really any particular order. Aside from Mokuba's chapter (which is completely canon-loyal), Formation delves into the daemon choices behind the Underpinning universe characters.


	2. Yugi Mutou

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It had to be bad luck. It had to be, but Yugi wasn't certain."

Yugi comes to in a sea of pain, a lot of confusion, and an overly hot, pressing feeling around his throat.

The weight turned out to be a monkey—turned out to be _Izumi-_ a trembling waif of an animal clinging with pure desperation, the sounds tumbling from her mouth a mix of broken syllables and _Yu- Yu—gi- Yugi, ple- ase—Yugi please—_

Shifting slowly to his elbows, he tried to sit up. Izumi whimpered, nestling closer, tail and limbs wrapping tighter.

Slowly, he felt his priorities shift toward breathing and breathing alone. “I-Izumi, I c—can’t-”

She keened like he’d never heard before, letting go for one moment – he sucked in air – before re-attaching to his face. Breathing was still a concern.

“Yugi! Yugi, so worried! I was so worried!”

“Ooouch…!”

His small daemon sets to sobbing, which is just about the scariest thing he’s ever heard in his life. He tries comforting _her,_ which isn’t something he’d thought he’d ever be doing, but it works to a degree—she stops death-gripping his face, slowly lowers herself as an exhausted puddle in his lap, large eyes glittering in the dim light of his bedroom. Izumi doesn’t manage to tell him what exactly had happened aside from ‘cold,’ ‘dark,’ and ‘thought you were gone,’ but none of it makes sense, and they end up frustrating each other with their shared inability to explain.

Had it been a nightmare? But they’d just been at school…

Did it have to do with his growing bruises? That wasn’t so new…

… Joey and Tristan! Ushio had attacked them!

But then—

Yugi blinked, looking around himself to the still, peaceful room.

How was he back in his bedroom?

“Izumi…” A small black face turned up toward him, the rest of her remaining in a boneless, exhausted sprawl. He swallowed convulsively, hand resting over her seemingly fragile torso. “… What happened to us?”

Across the way, set innocently on the window sill, moonlight glinted off a finished golden pyramid.

\---

The black outs increased dramatically.

It took him a while to connect the beginning of the times he forgot to the presence of the pyramid around his neck. Once he did, he’d sat for a long, silent time on his bed, simply holding and gazing at it. The pieces had been solid gold, its box as heavy as a stone, but now it was a seamless, light thing, as easy to forget as the passing of summer.

Izumi had grown less terrified after each blanked out moment, which was just about the only way he’d known they’d been happening. She still clung, she still whimpered and trembled; but she no longer cried, no longer wailed, no longer strangled. Instead she stuck closer to him the day after, and more than that – once both of them had drawn their conclusions about the puzzle’s involvement – she refused to get anywhere near the golden pyramid.

“It’s bad luck.” She whispered once, tail curled around his neck, tiny hands fisted in his jacket. “I can tell. It’s cursed.”

But she never directly told him to get rid of it, and—honestly—he couldn’t bring himself to. Despite their apprehension, it seemed the both of them had vested interest in the piece that had taken them years to put together. Or, better put: they had their fair share of curiosity.

He didn’t linger long on the fact she had settled into her spider monkey form the day he had completed the puzzle. Settling happened for a variety of reasons, with even the best researchers unable to pin-point the exact cause other than a vague answer of, _you’ve reached adulthood._

If this was adulthood, it didn’t feel much different than before.

Except… it undeniably was different.

Bullies began to disappear. That was frightening. In fact, it was downright _concerning._ What if others around him got hurt? What if it never stopped? What if it went too far—what if someone died?

Joey Wheeler and Tristan Taylor were irrevocably his friends, if not often on his side. That was much less frightening.

Tea, with an armful of papers and an absent-minded tone, once commented his luck turned upward since completing the puzzle.

(She would have died in that back store room if not for whoever helped her—they didn’t know who had out-witted the mugger, but Izumi had trembled for a reason unrelated to Tea’s assault, and the puzzle had been so warm under his palm.)

Looking at the mess of ketchup, fries and burgers Joey and Tristan created, with Tea shaking her head in mock-disgust to the side, he couldn’t keep his fingers from curling around Izumi’s slight form and, privately, agreeing. If the black outs were the price, if nothing escalated further—it was well worth it.

His daemon hunkered down further on his shoulder, and no raucous laughter from Joey could have drowned out her foreboding, “Bad luck. It’s bad luck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yugi - a black spider monkey.


	3. Mokuba Kaiba

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It wasn't natural."

The Kaiba brothers were strange.

After threatening both their own and other’s lives, one would think it wouldn’t even need to be said. But the cackling Mokuba, the obsessive Seto Kaiba – they inspired fear, and anger, and hurt, and… Discomfort.

And that was the only word for it: discomfort. Crowded into the back of the helicopter -- and don’t get them wrong, they were grateful for the ride, even if the senior Kaiba brother owed them so much more for all the shit he’s put us through, as grumbled by a pissed off Joey – shouted conversation over the machine’s noise ground to an abrupt halt as the scene in the front seats unfolded.

Seto Kaiba’s crow daemon, an ugly, perpetually ruffled, ill-tempered thing, hopped from her spot on the teen’s seat to Mokuba’s shoulder, casting one beady-eyed glare (- who knew a bird could glare so well! -) to the back before carding her beak through the boy’s unruly mane. Mokuba laughed when the crow’s beak caught against his noise-proof headphones, reaching up—to the great shock and increased discomfort of those present—to straighten the bird’s more crooked feathers. At first the younger Kaiba looked shocked into stillness over the crow’s attention, but the surprise melted quickly into a joy unparalleled.

The touches were light, almost reverent. The bird glowed under them. Even though they were… touching.

Yugi averted his eyes in time to catch Tea’s, both of their eyebrows raised high. Not even the most passionate couples touched each other’s daemons for long in public – it was uncomfortable. Sure, really young kids did it, wrestling with daemon and kin alike, but after you were old enough to know better… 

An older student looking to make quick cash had hauled Izumi up by the scruff, once—the shock of it had dropped Yugi like a stone, his knees buckling and heart racing, all terror and disgust and wrongness. He’d felt filthy in a way he couldn’t describe for hours after. The bully seemed to have suffered a similar effect, dropping Izumi and taking off in nearly the same second with an unnerved expression, his lizard daemon scurrying to catch up. The last he’d heard of the boy, he’d been expelled for harassing one too many girls.

“Creepy,” muttered Joey, breaking the silence in the back and causing Yugi to start. Cramped between him and Tristan with Dani between his feet, Joey was barely audible even to the ones nearest him. “The bastard’s smiling.”

Yugi and Tristan shot their eyes forward with the speed of a teenager given the possibility catch an illicit act. 

And so Kaiba was: smiling, in a small, understated fashion.

Yugi averted his eyes again, clearing his throat nervously and attempting to shuffle even further away from Joey’s pitbull daemon, but not before catching sight of a ferret wriggling with barely restrained energy against Kaiba’s side.

\---

Mokuba’s daemon settled the day his brother fell into a coma. 

At eleven, it was early, but not unheard of. He wasn’t surprised. His brother’s had settled at age ten, three weeks into their adoption by Gozaburo Kaiba. He was glad Naomi waited as long as she did—not a year earlier, she would’ve been put through the same program as Seto’s Gina. 

A tannish, greyish ferret, Naomi felt like a furry slinky in his hands: quick, clever and boundlessly energized, she wove between his feet and pulled at his pant leg to get his attention, bringing him game after game to play while he sat by his brother’s wheelchair and waited. She never lost hope – she never had lost hope – and that determination, that belief so like his big brother’s… He relied on it. He’d always respected what a daemon told about a person – his own was no different, though for some reason, he thought it should be.

She was just so hopeful.

He played Uno in that wide-windowed room, even though he only made hands for himself and Seto. Naomi played with Seto’s dealt cards, though she struggled to check the cards without revealing her hand.

He played Checkers instead, the pieces big and easy to move. Her tail knocked a number of kings askew, but she tried.

He didn’t let himself cry when he was in that cold, wide-windowed room. He couldn’t cry around his brother like that, not when Seto needed him to be strong. When it got to be too much – when his eyes caught on the motionless, perfectly groomed bird laying still in Seto’s lap for one second too long – Naomi pulled him by their bond out the door, turning her own back on him as he buried his face into his arms. It was respectful. It was what Gina would’ve done. He wanted nothing more than to hold her close and have her tell him it would be fine. He appreciated her making sure he didn’t. 

It was hard, going from a barely official vice president to KaibaCorp’s temporarily acting CEO. And then all at once it was too hard, with his brother six months silent and the Big Five turning on them and his brother not waking up and the dark, dank dungeon under Duelist Kingdom and escape and re-capture and why wouldn’t his brother save him? He couldn’t, Seto was in a coma, Mokuba was on his own---

Under Gozaburo’s hired tutelage, Seto and Gina learned how to behave. Daemons told too much about a person for those who knew what to look for. There were things one couldn’t hide, like what form the daemon took – that was already one too large of a give-away, and the only way to make up for it was through practice.

Gozaburo’s daemon had eyes like a pool that ran too deep into the earth, swallowing all light and life. 

Business required subtly in aggression. Business required dedication, not passion. Business required poise, and ruthlessness, and a daemon that was seen but not heard. 

A crow did his brother no favors: it made him seem, said Gozaburo’s marketing team, unreasonable and unapproachable. Flighty and dishonest. Too clever of a bird to be trusted – too unkempt to be respected. The crow had to go, said Gozaburo’s marketing team. Tell people it’s a raven. At least those were alluring in mysteriousness.

Gozaburo told people she was a raven. He also told Seto not to coddle her so, and to keep her off him lest he look like a childish fool. 

Gina possessed an elegant diction, with a wit sharper than his brother’s. She had a great deal of fun tumbling with Naomi, who had favored mythical dragons whenever she could get away with it, often playing mother hen once Naomi inevitably went too far and stubbed a toe, or got spooked by her own tail, or even just looked pitiable purely for the attention. That was how it had been at the orphanage, and for as long as Mokuba could remember: Gina, the playmate and caretaker, the perfect reflection of his brother. After, though—after. From the very first moment Seto led her to a brand new cast iron cage under their tutor’s watchful eye and locked her in for hours at a time, Mokuba couldn’t remember her speaking beyond the rattling caw of her shape-sake.

Mokuba let himself sob, a broken, tired weeping, in Pegasus's dungeon. It was too much.

\---

The media and the fans caught wind of the Kaiba brothers’ oddity.

So engrossed in rebuilding KaibaCorp after the Big Five’s betrayal was Seto Kaiba, no one could believe he had time for anyone else. Sure, the guy’s kid brother was back as a vice president, but that had to be out of sentimentality or as an insult to his business rivals. For any who had dealt in business with Seto Kaiba, they swore up and down it had to be the latter.

The more dedicated fans picked up on the elder Kaiba’s discomfort with his daemon. They didn’t know why, though there was no end of speculation—to one seventeen year old female from Osaka, it was because Seto spent so much time doing business instead of dueling. She claimed he was only really himself when dueling.

Others, like one fifteen year old male from Kobe, said he was akin to the witches of lore and could walk separate from his daemon. Another said he’d undergone a secret rich person ritual—hadn’t Maximillion Pegasus looked uncomfortable with his daemon, too? No, argued one more- it had to be because the bird wasn’t Seto’s daemon, but actually a fake daemon. Seto’s real daemon was undoubtedly his signature Blue Eyes White Dragon!

The fans saw how stiff he was with the crow (or was it a raven?) on his shoulder in press conferences as opposed to the dueling arena, though the media took it as a measure of professionalism. They don’t see how at ease he is with a ferret puddled in his hands while his brother slams his laptop closed with a sandwich, or how often he lets Mokuba cradle the crow, her wings stretched out over small hands.

It is true he never really looks comfortable with his own. But Mokuba carries both of their souls with enough skill for it to not matter, the boy smiling wide whenever work slowed enough for an easy back-and-forth conversation, their daemons (Gina with a hesitance made nearly invisible) playing old games of chase and hide-and-seek, holding jumping competitions off the desk, and in general raising a quiet, contained hell. It almost seemed like they were making up for lost time. Neither Kaiba questioned it—it wasn’t as if the human counterparts could bring themselves to do the same. Easy conversation and shared smiles was as far as it went, but that--

It hadn’t been easy. Not in the first month back to normal, and not the second or third: filled with moments of two brothers trying to re-align jagged edges, trying to fit in a way that was supposed to be natural and yet was anything but. They made it, though. They made it together, and that—

That was worth the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mokuba - Naomi, a ferret. Seto - Gina, a common crow.


	4. Seto Kaiba

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Even at ten, he always had to surpass expectations."

Black eyes, black feathers, black claws. Black, black, black. It didn’t look so bad. It looked cool. _She_ looked cool, because of course she did. He ran a hand down her glossy back, marveled at the sleek feel; she preened, confidence radiating. Late at night after hours of study, books shut, body and mind exhausted, the cold house still, he smiled into the dark. 

_This is it?_

_This is it._

A simple exchange. 

It settled the matter neatly. He thought, _better now than later_ , and not much else.

\---

It took Gozaburo four days and eleven hours to realize she had settled.

“At ten years old?” A smile, patronizing and sickening. It sent a shiver down his spine that he didn’t show to the man who gave them so much to work against. ”You always have to surpass expectations, don’t you, boy?”

“I wouldn’t be here otherwise,” he pointed out, keeping his tone bored. It made the smile drop from his step father’s face, to which he thought, _good_.

“You’ll have another tutoring session come next week. She’ll need behavioral training and a groomer—and,” his interest in his adopted son fading, gaze dropping back to the paperwork on his grand desk in his grand study, “remember. How well she does reflects directly on you and your brother.”

It was all the reminder he needed – it bordered on a threat, he thought. Gozaburo believed he could intimidate him. On his shoulder, Gina rustled her feathers, a grumbling croak rolling in the deep of her throat. He raised his chin, eyes narrowed, fists clenched. _I beat you, old man_ , he thought, but didn’t say. _I beat you. You’re never around. You’re no family of ours. I beat you. You’ll teach me what I need, and then you’ll get out of the way._

His mouth said: “Alright.”

The sickening smile returned.

“Won’t you call me father?” Three weeks, four days, eleven hours in Gozaburo Kaiba’s household, and the second time he had made the request. Seto didn’t realize it would be the last time the man would ask politely. “You should get in the habit.”

\---

The groomer who Gozaburo hired was named Isabelle, her peacock daemon was named Henry, and the first time she laid hands on Gina, he nearly broke her arm.

_No one_ but him and Mokuba touched his daemon—the very sensation struck a primal cord, blanked his mind and made him see red. Everyone knew people didn't touch other people's daemons. The worst of the tyrants in the orphanage had kicked or scrabbled with his and his brother’s daemons, but after he’d grown large enough to fight back, he _had_ broken their arms (an act the matron pretended not to know the cause of, the troublemakers having a far worse record). He dealt with Isabelle coolly because he wasn’t a _child_. Because he wasn’t a child, _she had no right_ to touch his daemon. He said as much as coldly as he could, but he heard his voice tremble and saw his arms shake and knew she knew he wasn’t in control. 

“This is how it’s done.” Had been her reply from across the room, her bird’s tail fanned out to take up as much space as possible, his recently appointed bodyguard’s fingers digging painfully into his shoulder to keep him from moving closer. “Don’t be obtuse – it isn’t anything personal. I have to touch her to make her perfect. She’s in a ratty state – if you took better care of her, the process would be over much faster.”

“She can take care of herself just fine,” he spat, the shaking growing. Her feathers standing on point, wings restlessly settling and re-settling, her talons pricking at his skin through his shirt, Gina hunched on his shoulder, glaring daggers at both the groomer and her daemon. She was just as rattled as he, poised to snap back the moment Henry gave her a reason to. 

Isabelle _tsked_ and threw up her hands, looked over him to his bodyguard, despite the fact Seto was the one related to who paid her. “He’s too young! I don’t care if the bird’s settled, I can’t work with him. Bring him back when he can sit still _like an adult_.”

\---

Arriving home with the news roped him a one-on-one talk with Gozaburo in his study.

It was the first time (not the last time) his step father struck him. The man struck without blinking, which meant Seto didn’t see the backhand coming; the man struck without apology, which sent Seto reeling; the man struck and then spoke, calling him an unfit child, calling him immature, calling him a disappointment, saying he expected more from him, and don’t talk to him again until he understood what he had done wrong _and took responsibility to fix it,_ like an adult would.

\---

His first thought was, _no, no, I don’t understand. What did I do wrong?_

\---

His second was, _what if Mokuba sees?_

\---

Being an adult meant one’s daemon knew how to behave in public and private. 

First and foremost: poise. A daemon is the rawest picture of a man. Mold it. A daemon should know how to act without being watched. It shouldn’t speak. It shouldn’t act out. It should, to the best of its ability, _not be._ Never rely on a daemon.

Second: control. Know a daemon’s limits. They are its person’s limits. Going above or below made a man look like a fool. Walk the edge, and finesse will naturally follow. Never rely on a daemon.

Third: never rely on a daemon.

“There’s a reason,” sniffed the behavioral specialist, an ailing man with thinning white hair and fine white whiskers, his daemon a dead-eyed fox sitting statuesque at his feet, “the best and brightest aren’t seen hugging and holding their daemons. They may be important to our functioning, but they aren’t the ones inventing computers or managing companies. Take care of yourself, boy.”

Seto decided he despised the word ‘boy,’ and once he was able, he’d fire anyone who said it.

“They’re the most likely to give away your weaknesses,” the old man continued with a wobble of his moustache, “and your opponents know it. You’ll know it, soon enough. I’ll teach you how to look the picture of strength while rooting out their failure.”

The old man’s next direction came with a curl of his lip and hand-wave at Gina, who clacked her beak at his rudeness. He didn’t look pleased by the reaction. Seto, meanwhile, fought down a smirk.

“The first measure is to stop coddling that creature. Make her sit on your chair’s back, not your shoulder.”

_I don’t_ make _her do anything_ , he thought, but did not say. He shared a glance with his crow – she gazed back at him, her chest expanding before whistling out in her equivalent to a sigh. She seemed to shrug, telegraphing _what’s the harm?_ , before hopping back to the dark wood of the chair. 

Inexplicably, desire rose sharp in his throat - he wanted to call her back. He almost did, the words springing to the tip of his tongue—then the old man spoke, drawing his attention back, and he didn’t say anything.

His jaw ached.

\---

Not fifteen days later, they put him in a dark car and drove him back to the groomer’s. He nearly bit through his cheek, his fists so clenched his palms gained white crescent indents – he stayed quiet while Isabelle poked and pulled at Gina’s feathers and worked to catch his impulses before he could make a fool of himself. Gina barely managed to keep from flying in a rage from under the groomer’s attentions, but she did, and he thought her excellent poise and control was the only redeemable factor of the entire venture.

After, his bodyguard decided his good behavior was worth an “off the record” stop at an ice cream parlor. 

Chest tight with the memory of manicured nails dragging over Gina, skin crawling with disgust, his daemon laying unfocused and off-balance in his cupped hands, he bitterly thought the gesture an insult. 

As it turned out, the stop wasn’t “off the record.” The driver let the detour slip to Gozaburo. The bodyguard was replaced within the week.

\---

Compared to the heavy pull of exhaustion, anger gave him energy. It felt delicious: a hot, burning emotion, motivating him to move where he might have collapsed, inspiring him to keep what mattered and discard the rest and never, ever, ever stop.

“Big brother?” His brother, arms wrapped around his ever-shifting (-- Seto’s stomach knotted when he thought she would one day not be _ever-shifting_ \--) daemon, said to him once they ran into each other in the hallway, his dark eyes wide and beseeching. “They took away all the board games.”

“I know,” he said, forcing the anger back because his brother didn’t need to see it. The absence meant exhaustion filled his words – he wasn’t sure if it was better or worse.

Mokuba searched his face, looking young and unsure, like he needed Seto to assure him of something. Seto tried to think of what it could be, but his thoughts felt hazy and entangled. The only things that made sense were numbers. “And our chess board. And our cards. And--”

“I know, Mokuba.”

His brother seemed to decide not to wait for him to catch on, which startled him. He’d always been the best at reading his brother’s wants. That couldn’t have changed. “Why?”

Why?

_Because I didn’t really beat him back then. I need to win a bigger battle now, and I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, but we both have to make sacrifices to reach our goal. It’s for the best. Be strong for me, please. I’m sorry. I never wanted to ask anything of you._ He thought, but didn’t say.

“It’s only temporary,” crawled out of his mouth, and he watched himself speak as if from far away. “Is it that big of a problem?”

Slowly, his brother shook his head, though his wide eyes betrayed his surprise. He looked like he wanted to argue. That bothered Seto more than his earlier inability to catch on to Mokuba, because if Mokuba was so easy to read, others would be able to hurt him without thinking twice. Which really didn’t make sense: Seto would always be there to protect him.

_But what if he wasn’t?_ The thought crept into the back of his mind, stared at him with sick yellow eyes. What if Mokuba’s daemon settled without him knowing? What if Gozaburo laid a hand on him or made him feel ashamed? What if Gozaburo already had? _Had_ Gozaburo—

“Did you argue with them?” He snapped. He drew to his full height, which badly startled his brother; the boy shrunk back against the wall, hiking his daemon up closer to his chin. 

“No, no, I just asked why, and they said to ask you.”

He breathed out, felt his chest retract from the point of pain. “Good.”

A new emotion lined Mokuba’s eyes, one never before directed at Seto. Something deeper than the bruises on his back _hurt_ , but he couldn’t say he knew what it was, and in truth, he didn’t want to know.

\---

It got worse.

_No,_ he corrected himself. _It got harder._

At first, it was only for the specialist’s sessions that he wasn’t to touch Gina. Then the session became until dinner; until the sun set; three days; a week; finally, a month. 

“I’ve given both of you two percent of Kaiba Corporation’s shares.” _Happy birthday, eldest son._ “If the amount isn’t doubled and returned by the end of the year, consider the job a failure.”

_And you know what happens to failures._

At first, every inch of him screamed to take Gina back into his arms, to keep her close and safe. They were two parts of a whole – what was he without her? It was as unfathomable as a life without Mokuba.

But he had to beat Gozaburo, he _had_ to, and the specialist had no warm feelings for him. The old man would know if he coddled his daemon – he didn’t know _how_ the man would know, but he would. And he couldn’t let—he couldn’t let his body or his soul get in the way of beating Gozaburo. Gina understood. Mokuba understood. He didn’t have the _time_ for anything to go wrong.

\---

“We’re clever,” she whispered to him later that night, after the tutor left and the room fell dark, his birthday a half hour from ending. “The cleverest. He doesn’t stand a chance. We’ll win again.”

He pretended to be asleep, though he fooled neither of them - it meant he didn’t have to ward her off when she carded her beak through his hair, body settling warm and delicate next to him.

Pretending—no, _needing_ \--wanting?-- _all of it_ , the comfort, the flimsy kindness--felt shameful.

Under his mattress, a crayon-drawn Blue Eyes White Dragon card laid: usually he felt it burn as an ember on the colder nights, but all he could think was _it’s a piece of a paper. What can it do?_

He didn’t say it. He didn’t say it, he wouldn’t say it, he shouldn’t have thought it. 

He rolled over in his pretend sleep, which fooled neither of them. She squawked, dislodged and undignified and, ultimately, offended.

Which was ridiculous. He’d thought her smarter than that – after all, it should have been obvious. If they weren’t allowed to be together in the daylight, what use was the night?

\---

Three weeks in the Kaiba mansion, Gina had settled as a common crow. Despite her species, despite her smaller size and less reputable wit as compared to the raven – he had looked at her and thought _this is it, this is right_ , and it had been simple, and clean, and perfect. Three months after his step father issued his challenge, he returned to the mansion with an annoying shake in his limbs, the residue of adrenaline yet to fade. It had been the first time he had managed to meet face-to-face with the local underground ward boss. It had been…

Unconsciously, his feet stopped outside Mokuba’s door. Sunken eyes turned slowly toward it, a shadow appearing between pinched eyebrows. 

He hadn’t seen the boy in days, too busy with meeting after meeting after meeting (the sort Mokuba couldn’t attend, no matter how good of practice the demonstrations would have made). That mattered, he thought; his not being around. That mattered.

Sly words - _you’re never around_ \- pricked his heart. _You’re no family of ours_ filled his lungs as ice cold water, chest (unbruised, unbeaten, his work was _right_ , he wasn't a child in need of being reminded of his place) seizing.

Gina, by the misfortune of her shape, often perched on his bodyguard’s shoulder when he met with business partners. When alone in the mansion, she swept through the halls on light wings, hardly glancing at him as she stretched their bond farther and farther, a bond which he swore weakened as time wore on. 

This time, she stayed within three steps of him, alighting upon a balcony’s railing.

For the first time in a week, she spoke directly to him. 

“We’ll give him the world.”

The words loosened his heart and cleared his lungs. Running on leftover adrenaline, he held out his arm, hand curled into a fist like the falconers on television – he hadn’t a glove, but his suit’s fine material functioned the same. Thoughtlessly, his eyes flitted to meet hers; ears warming, he made a point to look away, his hand dropping not long after. 

Thinking of what the he had learned, he expected her to laugh. She didn’t. Maybe she thought to say something, but she didn’t.

Feathers brushed his arm as she stepped across the bannister, her wings poised to take flight. She didn’t, but he—wanted her to, he wanted to see her take Naomi and fly through a window into the wide open sky. He wanted, in the same way he wanted her black feathers to become silver scales, impervious and perfect, and her black eyes to become sparkling blue, wise and protective. He _wanted,_ but what he wanted felt like nothing more than far-fetched dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seto Kaiba - Gina, a common crow.
> 
> Phew... I had a lot of introspective fun writing this. Hope y'all enjoyed.


	5. Mai Valentine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “This sort of thing took her precious time, and wasted it.”

Green eyed, red haired, a light dusting of freckles and a heavy pocket full of cash meant she didn’t mind his hand on her thigh. 

A leopard gecko peered out from under his rumpled shirt collar, its eyes blinking beady and warm at her daemon. That was a good sign - if the daemon kept its gaze on Weston, she knew she had its human’s loyalty (temporary or otherwise). Weston, a thin orange tabby, slunk from her lap to her side, his purr a rumbling encouragement that heightened the moment anyone looked at him. Also good: he was skilled at playing the cute card. She was thinking they could exchange it for the ‘mature’ card soon, with her curves and sharp-tongued charm, but it was a work in progress. They had to use _cute_ for a long, long time.

The heavy pocket full of cash was named Jeff, and he was in the midst of a blackjack winning streak. Part of it was due to his aptitude. A bigger part of it came from her distracting the other players at key moments, or sleight-of-handing him what he needed before he knew what he wanted. Not so much as to make the others at the table leave or accuse him of cheating, but enough to keep him a step ahead of the competition.

A round passed and he raked in a nice stack, sparking off a cheer from her and a happy chirp from Weston before the cat slunk down to curl at her feet. Jeff turned to her with a big grin, his cheeks rosy with drink; she leaned in to give him a peck on the cheek, all smiles and challenge for those in the losing. Baiting. It wasn’t hard. 

Jeff brought her back with a shake to her knee, bumping his shoulder against her, smile quirked extra-high at the corner. “You know? You’re my lucky charm, baby girl.”

She laughed, light and clear, because oh, wasn’t that the truth?

Jeff’s daemon moved to whisper something in his ear. She took the time to organize his chips, sending a wink to the dealer as he cut the deck.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. _Babe._ ” Suddenly Jeff pulled his hand back as if she’d turned to lava, those green eyes wide in shock. As nice as it was to know she had his complete attention, she had a sinking feeling she knew where this was going, and it wasn’t where she wanted it to. “Your daemon isn’t settled?”

_Shit._

A stolen glance downward proved what caught the gecko’s eyes: Weston had shifted from an orange tabby to a smoky, long-haired Russian ragdoll. She could deny it, play it off as a trick of the low light, but it was too easy to disprove if they were going to stay together for the whole night. So, she’d keep it cool. 

Sliding her arm over his shoulders, she lined herself along his side in the way she knew people liked best, all admiration and flirtation and promise for more. “Aw, come on, Jeff. Yeah, he’s unsettled. So what? Can’t we get back to the game? You’re on a winning streak.”

Jeff wasn’t having it. She had to admit a begrudging respect for him sticking to his principles, if only it wasn’t getting in her way. 

“Uh, yeah,” Shoulder brought up to shake her off, which she took with a full-lipped pout, “listen. How old are you, really? You in here on a fake?”

What, suddenly he thought she was _underaged_? Did she look younger than twenty-one? Her make-up begged otherwise. She dropped the pout for a carefully scandalized glare. _No, no, no._ This was _so_ not how the night was supposed to go. Time to turn up the volume. “It’s not a fake, my daemon’s just a little late-- I thought I was your good luck charm! Are you throwing me out?” 

The way those green eyes turned toward the cat at her feet shifted the scandal on her face to real frustration. Jeff looked at her daemon like Weston was something to _pity._

“I know you might think this is the way to go, but… You’ve got a lot of time ahead of you. You should get on home.”

A disgusted scoff ripped its way from her throat. She jerked back from Jeff as if it was _his_ turn to become lava, expression scrunched up.

A bit of her knew she sounded whiny, that it wasn’t any way to win an argument - winning debates was about poise, and control, and not letting your opponent know what you were thinking - but she couldn’t help it. The night had been going so well. “You can’t be serious!”

“I think I am, Mai.” He sounded sad for her. He sounded like he was really pitying her! Just her luck, picking out the one guy with a strict moral code. “Here, I’ll give you enough chips to cash in for a taxi. Go on home.”

“I helped you win that money,” she snapped, reaching down to scoop Weston up and make her way out from the bench. The other players dutifully ignored the spat, because unlike goody mister two shoes here, they understood how ‘good luck charms’ worked. “A portion’s mine, not yours to _give_ to me!”

It was an awkward transaction, him button-lipped and patronizing, her bristling and ready to kick something, Weston hissing from her arms at his stupid little gecko. She grabbed the chips he offered with a scathing look, trudging away with every intention to hop into the _next_ bar and win for somebody _there_ who had the sense not to care about her daemon’s form. Even in the dim light, however, she couldn’t miss the look that followed her to the door, all _her dad must be awful_ and _what a poor little girl_.

Outside, clouds obscured the moon and a cold, gusting wind threatened rain. She took off down the sidewalk for the next neon sign, everything in her radiating anger.

Weston wiggled in her arms, his voice disgruntled. “Mai--”

“I don’t want to hear it, Weston.”

“But, Mai--”

“I said _I don’t want to hear it_ , Weston!”

“You’re hurting me!” 

She dropped him without answering. He flitted, quick and easy, into the shape of a rabbit, springing forward across the cold concrete. The sight made her swing into the next alley with a frustrated yell, lashing out to knock a trash can onto its side.

The wind howled louder. A shiver ran down her spine as she gripped her elbows, turning her glare to the rabbit half-hidden around the alley’s corner. He looked small. She felt small.

“Why can’t you settle?!” The demand bubbled out of her, her cheeks warm and nails digging into her skin. “A cat is fine! I like cats! Tons of smart women have cat daemons!”

“I don’t think I’m a cat,” he replied, quiet as a mouse. She groaned in frustration, stumbling back to lean against the brick wall.

“I don’t _care_ what you think you are.” She didn’t, she didn’t, she swore she didn’t. If anyone else had been around, she would have kept her voice from cracking. As it was, she couldn’t. “I just want you to _be_ something.”

He hopped closer, large watery eyes catching the street light.

She slid down the wall, arms wrapping around her head. God. Look at her. Nearly nineteen, and her daemon still couldn’t decide. What that said about her -- she didn’t want that. She didn’t need that.

As Weston nosed his way under her chin, she lost some of the tension, words turned raw. 

“I want _us_ to be something.”

\---

“I could be a porcupine.”

A laugh, watery but breathing.

“Don’t you dare.”

\---

All of her friends’ daemons had settled. All of the orphans who lasted too long in the system with her had their daemon settle. Of her high school class, the last to settle (Nicole’s stupid bumblebee, Kelly) had done so three months before graduation-- now it was nearly a year after, and Weston _still_ hadn’t. 

Sure, he held onto forms for weeks at a time. Once, he’d been a gorgeous green parrot for two months, and though he hadn’t been sure about settling, _she_ had been, and it’d been great. She’d been able to gush about his plumage with her best friend; her other friend’s miniature pony learned how to nip without hurting him; the man she had been seeing at the time had congratulated her on settling on such a fine form, saying _of course you’d save the best for last!_

And then one night while she had snapped photos of him for her newest picture frames, he had exploded into a tantrum and shifted rapidly from parrot to swan to dog to cat to viper, yelling that she wasn’t listening to him and she had no right to be angry when he’d never said he’d settled and _these things took time!_

She loved him. She did. She loved him as much as she loved the challenge of a good gamble, like lightning between her lips and the future at her fingertips.

She just wished he could decide. Now she was nineteen. She had a life to get to.

\---

She was twenty. 

Her friends’ daemons didn’t know how to act around Weston anymore.

\---

She was twenty-one.

Weston was a streak of fire, a banded snake, coiled and spitting. He looked alive.

Weston was poise and grace, a six-point stag, cutting a proud silhouette wherever he went. He looked regal.

She was chased out from casinos by sore losers who cited her shifting daemon as proof positive about her immaturity, who called her ID into question and made a fun night out too much work to bother with. 

It was fine. She had bigger things to set her sights on: regional competitions, national tournaments, the international stage. For the first two, she registered as a nineteen year old; it was extremely odd her daemon hadn’t settled, but it wasn’t off-putting. A friend of a friend hooked her up with fake papers with some throw-away comment about women always wanting to be younger. She’d grinned and bore it, because then, at least, judges didn’t seek her out after the matches to give her advice on what therapists she could see.

Weston was a hulking vulture, gentle on the inside but pure intimidation at first glance.

Her remaining friends were as supportive as expected. That was to say, they weren’t sure what to make of her. They hadn’t known what to do with her since she was nineteen.

\---

She was on the cusp of twenty-two.

She’d read every article and book she could find about what daemons settling meant. From the scientific to the spiritual, personal accounts to academic documentation, even the declassified cases of crazy experimentations in terrible dictatorships. They all drew from different sources, but each and every one came to the conclusion that a daemon settling had to do with a human’s aging. 

When a crack psychologist from the early 20th century called her immature, Mai thought her life had reached a new low.

Weston, a beautifully coated mink, pushed his head against her side. He sounded close to self-pity. “I’m--”

She snapped the latest book on the Buddhist’s interpretation of impermanent states relative to a permanently settled daemon and cut him off. 

“Don’t you dare.”

Books couldn’t answer her. People couldn’t answer her. Tradition definitely couldn’t answer her.

Weston and her had the least to apologize for.

\---

“Ignore the looks,” she whispered to him one day as they enrolled in their first Duel Monster tournament aboard a casino ship, her hard-won reward money going toward the best looking cards, “shift into whatever you want.”

He’d blinked raccoon eyes at her, head tilting. Uncertainty didn’t look good on him, she thought. It looked worse on her. “Are you sure?”

A firm nod. “Completely.” He shared her smile, after that.

She was twenty-two and a half.

After that, she stopped counting the days it had been since the last of her high school classmate’s daemon had settled.

\---

Appearance was important. She’d been taught and then lived through that rule: with appearance, she charmed and deceived; with appearance, she built and she kept and she left; with appearance, she could be anything she wanted to be, and people rarely were ever the wiser. She liked that - liked the control appearances gave her, the way she could craft whatever she needed and people fell in line for it. Sometimes she wondered if she was lonely, having surrounded herself with others who were like her - _appearance-based_ \- but then she had the thrill of another risk conquered, and she decided she was young enough to live a little. Her aroma tricks with her Harpy cards paid in the hundreds, and she was going places.

Weston had long been her Achilles’ heel, a semi-unpredictable chink in her perfectly cultivated appearance. 

She learned to deal with it. She stopped lying about her age, instead taking the comments with good humor or a pointed jab, and people respected that. Weston tended toward bigger and eye-catching forms, which made it all the more obvious when he changed. It seemed to her like he had learned how to play at appearances, too, which she liked.

She was twenty-three.

\---

In a nice room above a pachinko parlor in Osaka, she was twenty-three, blurry-eyed and sore from a night on the town. Rubbing sleepy sand from her eyes, she yawned and stretched, nose scrunched as her cotton mouth fully registered. Ugh. She felt gross. Had she even brushed her teeth after the match with the train card-obsessed guy?

Well. Nothing a shower, bagel and cup of coffee couldn’t fix.

Stumbling into the bathroom, she hit the light and squinted against the harsh reflection from the white tile. “Weston? What are you doing in the tub?” 

“Mmmmnn,” he’d groaned, a skinny red fox with black paws in the air and tail hanging over the footed tub’s edge, “Dunno.”

She bit back a laugh, covering her mouth with the back of her hand. Oh, she definitely had awful morning breath. “Well, get up. I want to shower.”

Groaning again and louder, Weston huffed out a, “Don’t wanna,” even as he turned on his side and began to struggle upward. She didn’t hold back her laugh at the way his fur spiked in a silly mess, leaning against the bathroom doorframe to keep her upright. He whined at her as he fell like jelly from the tub, pooling on the floor in a vaguely fox-shaped puddle.

It struck her then, in a nice room above a pachinko parlor in Osaka. Laughter halted, her breath caught.

Weston raised his head to squint at her, a bit of worry appearing in his face. 

She stared back, smile growing slowly. After, she burst back into laughter; her vision grew blurry, but she didn’t care. Oh, God, she didn’t care.

“Is this it?” She gasped out, as cliche as any daemon-settling, high school-centric drama on television. “Is this really it? This is what you are?”

Realization dawned on Weston. Lips curled to bare needle-point teeth, his fluffy tail flopped to the side.

“Yeah.” His tone proud, unabashed, and brilliant. “Guess this is it.”

It had been _ages_ since she’d been thrown out for his shifting, but he looked so beautiful, so perfect, she couldn’t imagine ever wanting him to be anything else. 

Rubbing the heel of her palm into her eye, she pushed off from the bathroom door and wrestled down her laughter.

Reaching for her toothbrush, she couldn’t quit smiling. 

“You should’ve been a porcupine.”

“Aw, don’t you dare, Mai.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mai - a red fox.


	6. Ryou Bakura

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Ryou should have known better from the beginning. Shape excused nothing.”

The moonlight treated them the best - it softened their footfalls as they ran, it handled them with a father’s care (not too gentle, not too strong), it cloaked their surroundings in exciting mystery and led them to discoveries untold.

It didn’t _hide_ so much as temporarily obscure. More, the pale light made his hair and skin seem to glow, and that was pretty neat. The moon itself matched his complexion, pitfalls and all - yes, it treated him and his daemon well. The world didn’t notice how much they stuck out under the moonlight.

By and large, being the odd one out had its benefits. It had been so for as long as he could remember, for one; it meant he had plenty of time to research niche games and pagan rituals and everything shrouded, for two. 

At eleven years of age and a growing interest in the histories behind werewolves and vampires, Ryou sat at his pine wood desk, chin in his hand, and prodded lightly at his daemon. “Can I call you Luna?”

Red eyes blinked back at him, the white rabbit’s nose twitched. “But my name’s Jun.”

“I know,” Ryou returned, one foot hooking around the other under his chair, “but isn’t Luna cooler?”

Jun made a disagreeable noise and nipped with sharp teeth at Ryou’s finger. 

“If you still like it in three days, _maybe._ ”

His daemon knew him well. By the three day mark, Ryou forgot completely about Luna.

\---

Jun always favored lighter skinned and furred creatures. It meant mud and leaves stuck out when applied (voluntarily or otherwise), but it also meant a striking image in the dead of the night. Consequently, the one physical game Ryou excelled at was _ghost in the graveyard._ He only played it twice, but he was sure he could pick it up again at a moment’s notice.

Jun didn’t talk to others much. 

Jun liked to hug and paw at and press close to others a little too much for a little too long. 

The combination was an unfortunate one.

Jun had the tendency to stare with albino red eyes, which Ryou had tried to coach the daemon out of, but by the time he’d realized it wasn’t a thing daemons normally did, it had been an ingrained bad habit for Jun, and he wasn’t so invested in changing Jun’s behavior that he made it an issue, which come to think of it was probably why Jun didn’t stop.

Britain wasn’t the kindest country - it rained a lot and the skies never seemed to truly brighten - but kids were kids were kids, and Ryou had a handful of friends who never wanted to hang out after school but didn’t mind eating lunch with him or discussing the latest Sega game, so that was alright. There wasn’t much bullying at his school. Or maybe there was, but the bullies didn’t notice him.

Jun shifted into a variety of animals with opposable thumbs to play with him: a chimpanzee with thin skin, a wispy lemur, a baboon (only once: Ryou had laughed too hard at the way Jun walked), a small, silver-backed gorilla. Ryou appreciated the gesture, though he occasionally wondered if it didn’t make him feel all the more isolated that Jun was the only one who would stick around, and Jun didn’t even have a choice in the matter.

\---

He missed his sister.

\---

His father did, too. His father’s business trips stretched longer and longer, his gifts grew more and more extravagant to make up for it, and the house grew quieter and stiller and sharper, especially under the sun.

His mother had left after his sister, though not in the same way. She had walked out of the door and never returned.

\---

He wished Jun had a choice in the matter, if only so he could _know_ that the lemur-raccoon-gorilla-chimpanzee wanted to play games with him.

\---

Thirteen and bored, he spent more time in class designing Dungeon and Dragons campaigns than listening to arithmetic. 

The start of a new month meant seats were switched, and the new girl assigned to share his table kept shooting glances toward his sheets. Her daemon had settled a month prior, if he remembered right, which he only remembered at all because she’d been the second to settle and even at the outskirts of the gossip circle, he knew about it. Her daemon, a rooster with a brilliant green-and-blue plumage, met Jun’s red lizard eyes and held them.

As the bell sounded for lunch and Ryou hastily gathered his papers, she stood, took a step toward the door, chewed her lip, and back-tracked to stand over their table, her eyebrows drawn together. Packing slowed, he looked up and eyed her warily, unsure of what to say. He hadn’t given much thought to the talk of his peers which had long turned from Sega games to girls, but he hadn’t exactly spoken to a girl in a long time, either, and he had the idea that he should’ve felt more apprehensive about the idea than he actually did.

At the height of the tension, she broke first. She blurted, “Is that Dungeons and Dragons?”

He glanced down at the sheets with the boldened **DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS** words at the top.

He looked back up and nodded, feeling redundant.

“Are you a Dungeon Master?” She continued, undaunted. At their feet, her rooster daemon offered a ‘hey’ and ‘what’s your name?’ to his daemon. Jun didn’t reply.

“Um,” Ryou said.

The rooster introduced himself as Cassidy. Jun quietly, oh-so-quietly, said hello.

“Yeah, I… I could be, though I’ve never… really… led a session.” 

“I’ve wanted to play _forever_ ,” she said, and he balked at all of her energy. “Would you set up a session?”

“Um,” he said again, papers crinkling under his fingers, “we’d need at least three people, I think.”

“Oh.” She visibly deflated, which he thought made her more manageable to be around. “Oh. Right. Well…”

Cassidy scratched his talons against the floor, wings lifting and resettling. He began to eye Jun oddly, who didn’t budge.

“If you ever do…” She hedged, stepping back with hesitation in her every move, “... Like… Find more people, could I have a spot?”

“Sure,” he said for lack of anything else that came to mind, and blinked at the shine of her smile.

“Sweet! Alright, I’ll see you later, huh?” 

He shared a look with Jun, but his chest felt a little less tight, so he was able to say, “See you later,” before she left, which was pretty good.

\---

His father sent him a gold plated ring in a velvet container from Egypt for his birthday. Hung from a leather cord, it jangled as he walked through the quiet house, warming quickly against his chest.

Jun despised it, but it darkened the corners of the empty home and strengthened the moonlight - it softened what had been too sharp, and Ryou liked it.

\---

He didn’t manage to find two more people, but he learned that the girl’s name was Violet, and Cassidy learned that Jun’s name was Jun, and they ended up hanging out together after classes, although Ryou was the one who felt too nervous to invite her anywhere that wasn’t in public, and she had a handful of other friends who took up a lot of her time. After a month of the escalating friendship - Cassidy let Jun, a white skunk, snuggle under his plumage, though he didn’t let Jun stay for long - she invited him to hang out with her and her other friends.

In a fit of who-knows-what, he accepted.

They went to a local ice cream shoppe, where he got a single scoop of chocolate and sat at the end of the table of a gaggle of boys and girls who all tried their best to yell over the last. It was a lot more lively than the quiet, solitary group he sat with at lunch, and he really didn’t know how to insert himself into the conversation, but he enjoyed watching everyone else.

At least, he enjoyed it until one of the girl’s daemons squawked and pointed at Jun, and everyone - daemon and human - turned to look.

“Wait a second,” Violet’s friend with long eyelashes and curly black hair said, “is _she_ your daemon, Ryou? Why’s she have horns?”

Melted ice cream running a sticky line to his fingers, Ryou’s throat closed up.

Violet looked from him to Jun with widened eyes, her mouth dropped open to an ‘oh.’

While the group grew uncertain in how to handle the situation, the friend realized she had best press on. He really wished she hadn’t. “Don’t only guy goats have horns?”

“Jun is,” forced its way past his throat, but then his eyes darted around the expectant faces and words didn’t cooperate.

The atmosphere turned weird. Jun shifted into a small white cat, his eyes also darting between the other daemons’. Ryou noticed his gaze avoided Cassidy’s, but he didn’t want to think about what that might mean.

A boy sitting opposite him opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. His daemon hadn’t settled, Ryou didn’t think (but he wasn’t thinking much of anything). “... You have one of those.. same-gender daemons?”

Ryou gave a shaky, miniscule nod.

“Huh.” The boy said. Then, “Are there any extra procedures you have to do at hospitals?”

Ryou blinked.

The tension dissipated slowly, the boy sitting next to the speaker giving him a smack on the arm while the girl across from him demanded what in the world he thought doctors would care about with same-gender daemons as opposed to different-gender daemons. 

He couldn’t manage to say anything more than one-syllable replies to any questions directed his way, but the group regained its stride as they debated whether or not same-gender daemons were rare for this-and-that reason and time ran out and people parted, and at the very, very end, Cassidy took Jun under his wing and demanded he shift into a rooster too so they could be the very best looking things under the sun, and that was why Ryou didn’t die from embarrassment at age fourteen.

\---

He wasn’t invited often, and he didn’t see Violet _quite_ as much after school after that, but they still talked and occasionally traded pokemon over gameboys and her friends would smile at him in the hallways and that was alright. 

The sun didn’t burn as much. He still preferred the night, but overall, days passed smoothly.

\---

And then he learned he would need to write letters to them like he wrote letters to his sister, because they were moving and he didn’t have a choice and yes it would be hard but he had to do it and he’d make new friends where they were going and fresh starts would help them all and that was that.

\---

Jun settled under a full moon after Ryou’s father informed him they were moving to Japan, and Ryou took one look and laughed and laughed and laughed. He laughed until his stomach hurt, he laughed until he cried, and he cried until the laughter stopped. 

Skin pale, devoid of hair, eyes such a brown as to look a rusty red in the wrong light, Jun’s arms wrapped around himself self-consciously and asked if it might not be better if he wore clothes.

“Daemons don’t wear clothes,” Ryou told him between gasps, tears falling from his chin to the glittering golden ring hanging heavy from his neck.

Jun hummed uncertainly, gaze averted to his feet. He wiggled his toes. Stretched out his fingers, the nails pink and pearlescent. He looked right. It wasn’t right.

 _Well_ , raced the panicked thought through his otherwise empty mind, _he’ll be forever great at playing games with me._

Ryou laughed harder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ryou - Jun, a human.


	7. Marik Ishtar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "A world so small as the tombs should be simple, but hatred filled the corners and spilled into their hearts, and none of them walked away unscathed."

Tomb-keepers had a long tradition of naming their daemons after the Gods. Although certain accounts said the practice didn’t begin until Islam’s script buried the ancient Gods in paganism, the technicalities hardly mattered - on the birth of a tomb-keeper, their daemons were given name by their father, and that name carried the weight of history as important as any secret.

Marik didn’t know what Kebechet would be if she wasn’t Kebechet. Neither did Kebechet, as it would happen.

A trader loyal to the Ishtar family whispered into the dark that it was a name that could not be contained by dark tunnels, a comment which Marik heard only because the adults thought he was asleep in the room adjacent to their discussion. The Goddess was known for her wandering.

His father replied that she had been known for her purity, and though she wandered, she didn’t stray from what was true. He went on to mention the trader’s parents, and how he respected them greatly, and did not mean offense, but he hoped the trader had the good sense to listen to his elders.

Marik thought the olden stories a little too old, but he was only six, and Kebechet was his friend: a dutiful guardian, the tomb-keepers taught Marik they were gifts from the Gods they were named after, meant to guide where the human body faltered. They were wise, untempted by food or drink, tied to mortality only by devotion to their human. Kebechet said she didn’t mind her name, and that she liked Marik, too, and that there were so many tunnels to explore, so the only thing she cared about was wandering them with him. It sounded like what he wanted to hear, so he accepted it, and soon fell asleep.

Names held great power, his father said. Without them, a person was nothing: no future, no past, no present. To give up one’s name was the greatest sacrifice a person could make, so he had best guard his and his daemon’s closely.

The Pharaoh who had given up his name was akin to a friend, at this point: a hero of humanity, a martyr sent by the Gods. The very least the Ishtar family owed him was to guard his tomb. In truth, Marik heard the Pharaoh's story as often as his own name. 

He didn’t fully understand why he couldn’t meet the nameless Pharaoh, but then, he knew there were a great many things he couldn't meet.

\---

Kebechet mirrored the paintings on the walls with a twist toward the extravagant, her feathers a variety of flat but vibrant colors, her face human with the curve of a hawk’s beak, her dogs looming and a shining black, her crocodiles with disks and teeth made of gold. 

Ishizu thought her over-the-top, but Ishizu’s Nekhbet did the same, so what did she know? The two daemons were like blades glinting in the dark of the tunnels: eye-catching, a danger barely harnessed, two miniature deities with no boundaries aside from how far they could stray from their humans, all pompous pride and _I’m bigger than you!_

His father’s daemon was a hulking vulture, her eyes old and feathers weathered. His father could walk the tunnels without her, which Marik marveled at - she enjoyed the darkest room most, the room Marik and Ishizu weren’t allowed to touch, the room Ishizu said their mother spent the most time in before she passed away giving birth to Marik.

Frustratingly, Odion kept quiet about the matter, his face closing off whenever asked. Marik didn’t always trust his sister’s word, so he’d hoped his brother could confirm one way or another.

His _adopted_ brother, his father would remind him. Odion’s daemon had no name of her own. Rather, she had one - Marik _knew_ she did because sometimes Kebechet would pull too strongly on her tail and she would whip around to nip at Kebechet and Odion would just barely cut off his _’Sa--!_ ’ in time, which had to be a name, it had to be - but Odion wasn’t supposed to tell because she was a gift, not a right, and her name wasn’t his to give. That Odion’s daemon also wouldn’t tell, Marik tried not to think too much about.

But there wasn’t much to think about in between lessons, especially as Marik grew older and the tunnels grew smaller, so sometimes he looked at Odion’s dog daemon and wondered, and thought, and grew angry, and grew sad, and didn’t know what to do with any of it.

In contrast to his father and his daemon, Marik and Kebechet most enjoyed the room with the skylight. Natural light glimmered through the tombs’ dust, the sky close and far all at once. 

He thought he might want to go up there one day, but then he thought of the trader whispering words of wandering, and he looked at his gold-and-sapphire-blue scarab daemon, and didn’t want to fulfill what someone thought was inevitable.

“Odion,” he asked once, when it was the two of them because his sister had her studies when the square of light had almost reached the second pillar, “if you could name your daemon, what would you name her?”

Odion froze, which he did whenever he thought the question Marik asked was inappropriate. Marik supposed it was. But the light felt nice on his legs, and Kebechet was a hornless ox, her short fur a bright red and her eyes glowing white, and Odion’s daemon laughed as she pretended to fight an old clay vase. 

Finally, Odion said, “I couldn’t name her. I would have no right to.”

“My father did,” Marik threw back, which he thought was a pretty good argument.

Odion disagreed. “Your father is a great man.”

 _Maybe_ , Marik thought, but that doubt was a new thing, as startling as the rare rain. Unlike rain, it made him uncomfortable.

So instead he hummed, and said, “Could I name her?”

“I do have a name,” Odion’s daemon said, her voice polite but firm. Ishizu’s daemon talking to him wasn’t unusual, but Odion’s never did.

It made him sit straighter even as Odion looked ready to scold, his smile wide and interested. This was new. This was more interesting than rain, or the sun, or the moon, though maybe not more interesting than the sky. “You do?” He tried to be polite, but he just sounded excited. “May I know what it is?”

She laughed at him, her teeth white and glistening. She was always some variety of canine, which she said she’d probably permanently be one day; this day she was a mass of fur, her muzzle long and regal but the rest of her a puffy tan.

“Sara.” She said, causing Odion to stare at his feet. Marik’s grin widened. He knew it! _He knew it!_ She did have a ‘Sa--’ name! “You may call me Sara.”

“Thank you, Sara. Thank you very much.” He said, truthfully, before turning his triumphant grin on Odion, who weathered it with good humor. 

Kebechet was much less reserved about it - she took the form of a jewel-encrusted Ibis, her wings spread wide with calls of, “Sara! Sara!”

Sara laughed, again, and it was probably the most Marik had heard her laugh in one day since ever.

\---

There was more to be learned. The tunnels grew smaller and the sky grew farther away. His father drifted like the clouds: thin, wispy, attention far from his children. Ishizu and he argued more, and Odion bowed his head more, and they grew older, which was much less preferable than staying young.

\---

He wanted to touch the sky. Failing that, he wanted to visit the surface.

He could be allowed neither of these things. He had to protect his eternal friend, the nameless Pharaoh. 

\---

Odion saved his life from a snake and received a punishment. It wasn’t the first. His father grew as dark as his daemon’s favored room, or maybe Marik was just beginning to see the cracks in his father’s eternal wisdom.

Marik wanted to visit the surface and leave behind the dark. He loved the light. He grew greedy for it, as selfish as any God, but try as she might, Kebechet could not transform into a bird large enough to carry him, and could not separate from him as his father’s daemon did.

Ishizu’s eyes grew worried. Then Ishizu’s eyes grew quiet.

He grew as frustrated with her as he did with their father -- she wouldn’t let him talk about the surface for longer than a quarter of a day, she told him to think of the family, she spoke more with Nekhbet than with Odion or her own blood brother.

Odion stayed by his side, but Kebechet no longer wished to wander the tunnels, and soon their studies were all that changed, and those were just words.

\---

He grew too fast, his legs aching and his voice warbling. Ishizu hid her grin behind her hand, but Nekhbet and Kebechet found great joy in laughing at his silly, crackling voice. Odion smiled at it, too, which embarrassed Marik worse of all, the feeling that Odion was patronizing him-- he remembered when Odion had done the same! He didn't remember it well, sure, but he knew it had to have happened! 

But it wasn't as bad as it could be, and it brought a welcome change in focus from old stories and unchanging faces.

He didn't like it as much when his father only nodded and ordered him a new robe before dismissing him, but he felt determined to hang on to Sara's quiet giggle and not mind that he hadn't seen his father's vulture in months.

\---

One day, twirling under the skylight swirled Kebechet into a frenzy. It was the only explanation for why she shifted from pitch black jackal to a flopping fish, scales gorgeous under the sunlight and unfamiliar gills gasping as wide as her toothless mouth in the dry, dry air. 

She didn’t look anything like the cut-up fish the traders brought them: she looked like she had taken the lifeless creatures and added the walls’ paintings to them, and she looked to be in pain. She _was_ in pain, her every gasp stinging his heart, his whole body folding in as she kept the shape.

“What _is_ that? Kebechet! Kebechet, please, stop! -- Odion? Odion! Help, Odion!”

Dropping a vase from a height that should have cracked it, when Odion whirled around the corner to the room closest to the surface, he found Marik on his hands and knees, the whites of his eyes stark from fright, knuckles clenched white on the ground.

Marik glanced up long enough to catch sight of his adopted brother, and the terror in his face spurred Odion to race from doorway to skylight, Sara flitting from an unidentifiable mutt to a long-limbed sight hound. She dipped her nose to press against the fish’s gasping side, her words low and inaudible to the humans crowded around the scene. Marik’s voice cracked, but it was no longer amusing: his words tore at Odion, coated as they were in poisonous terror. 

“She’s dying!”

“Shh,” he tried, unsure of what else he could do. He couldn’t touch Kebechet - Sara wasn’t even supposed to, but -- he reached out to Marik, and held the boy as he collapsed against his chest. “Shh. She can’t die.”

Marik thought this a silly thing to say, as she very clearly was about to, her eyes wide and glassy and her scales so brilliant but growing dusty, growing faint.

“She can’t _breathe!_ ”

“Give her time,” Odion said, but how could he know? Had he seen this before? Fish needed water, he thought, though he didn’t know how or where. Tears collected in his eyes: he tipped his head down, wiped the tears and tried to drip them in her mouth, but Sara snapped her teeth at him and the salty water dropped useless against the ground as he jerked his hand back. He gaped at the hound even as Odion pulled him farther away, his chest tightening with more than Kebechet’s pain.

Just when he thought his lungs would burst and his ribs split open, Kebechet shifted into a small, thin snake, black as Anubis and light as the feather that would weigh against their hearts. Marik gasped in air, his eyes wide and terrified, teeth chattering in the after-effects of the anxiety.

She took one look at him and whispered her apology, saying she had only wanted to see if she could swim to the sky. 

Absurd. It was absurd. 

It was desperation.

Odion’s face shuttered, and Marik didn’t understand, but he knew something was changing.

\---

Marik thought he saw Nekhbet in the shadows of his room once as a venomous snake, fangs extended and eyes glittering, rattle silent, but Ishizu denied it when he ran to her room to demand an answer, and the next thing he knew they were arguing, they were screaming, they woke their father before Odion could reach them and the dark became darker and Ishizu was forced to apologize to Marik and then he didn’t see her for a week, and she didn’t see him for a week, and they saw no one for a week, they were in meditation in their rooms under their father’s orders and no one dared to venture close.

Who could venture close? There was no one and nothing.

Afterward, Marik sat and stared up at the sky and sun until his vision burned and eyes watered. Odion’s strong hand blocked the view with a few concerned words. He understood the tombs were as much the Pharaoh’s resting place as theirs.

It wasn’t a surprise. It was supposed to be an honor. Kebechet yowled as a furless cat with jewels stuck under her skin, tearing at the walls with broken claws.

Inevitability watched him from the shadows, venomous as any snake.

\---

The very sight repulsing him, he refused to eat the fish the traders brought. 

His father did not stand for it. 

\---

Though he continued his daily tasks without fail, it became obvious that more often than not, Odion’s back was tight with pain, tight with blood, tight with scars. Marik couldn’t remember the sound of Sara’s laugh.

Ishizu refused to speak with him on anything remotely off-limits. They were better off learning what they must, she said. They had a duty. Nekhbet no longer transformed into wondrous shapes to impress anyone, instead clinging tight to her shoulder as this-or-that, formless, forgettable.

Kebechet grew bigger but not brighter: her forms were dark, a twisted version of what they knew of animals from the walls and books, and impossible in the natural world. She was grotesque, Marik knew, but she was also a gift from the Gods, and so people kept their mouths shut when they saw her as a six-legged hound or double-headed bird. She hissed more than she spoke. She threatened more than she walked. 

Marik grew fearful of her, though she did nothing to any of them. She simply _was_ , and that was enough to make his skin crawl.

The skylight made the shadows of its room look so much worse.

\---

The dark grew darker.

\---

The dark grew darker.

\---

The dark grew darker.

\---

He learned how his father walked without his daemon at his side. 

He was to join his father in the ultimate devotion - removing himself from his ineffable guardian and gaining the Pharaoh’s secrets - within the day. They were supposed to wait for Kebechet to decide on her form, but - his father said this with something like disappointment in his gaze as Kebechet, a three-eyed crocodile, snarled at him - they were running out of time. The rite of passage would help her remember her origins, he said. The mortal world must have tainted her. His son was blessed to have a daemon so pure it rejected the Earth below its feet.

Kebechet hadn’t spoken to him intelligibly for days. He begged Odion to take his place. Nothing made sense - everything hurt.

\---

Odion was punished.

\---

The dark grew darker.

\---

Kebechet had three rows of teeth, crammed together in a mouth fit to burst, her glistening, red gums stretched to her sunken eyes. Her jagged claws did not match, and hurt to walk on. Her joints fueled the pain, forced to bend in places an animal’s never could. She could have risen above the limitations of mortal form, but she chose to feel all that she could.

She circled the room as the blade circled his skin, hacking and coughing on thick green phlegm as red coated the slab his father had strapped him to. The dark grew darker. Kebechet cackled through a punctured throat, a whistling, terrifying sound that chased Marik to darkness's edge. He fell.

\---

He woke. 

\---

Odion punished himself.

\---

Ishizu gasped, her hand flying to her mouth, but he knew not at what.

\---

He hadn’t looked at Kebechet since the day, his eyes instinctively skipping over her whenever she wandered near him. He couldn’t often tell when, or if, she was missing from his side. Guilt pricked at him when he realized he felt relieved, though it was distant and muffled. 

Similarly, the world happened through a sheet of dust: he forgot, and then he woke, and his father was dead and the Pharaoh was alive and nothing was right, nothing was familiar. The surface became a _must_ , the surface so vast, and if he hadn’t a goal he didn’t know what he would have done. Odion came with him, Sara his sleek canine-shaped shadow, and he recognized hatred so he held on to it, let it grow, molded and forced it to make up for the gaping hole Kebechet left.

The Millennium Rod tried to help, or he thought it did. It understood he was going to root out an imposter and it lended him its power for the deed, and so he worked with what he had. 

It wasn’t the sky, but it was the surface, and it felt inevitable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Marik - Kebechet, ???, severed.
> 
> (Once Underpinning gets to Marik, I plan to come back here and update with what Kebechet settles into!)

**Author's Note:**

> Daemons within this universe are an external manifestation of a person's soul. When younger, a daemon is unsettled and can take the shape of whatever fanciful creature can be thought up. Once a daemon "settles," however, it is popularly assumed that person has "found who they are," and subsequently grown up.
> 
> All of these chapters are me playing around with how the characters' daemons might settle and, after, act! There isn't really any particular order. Aside from Mokuba's chapter (which is completely canon-loyal), Formation delves into the daemon choices behind the Underpinning universe characters.


End file.
